1.9M viewers tuned in to the History Channel on Sunday night for the premier. The show features competitors “going head-to-head on horseback in a brutal tests of strength, endurance and courage.”

The show had some pretty fierce competition itself, between the season premier of The Walking Dead (which broke cable drama ratings records with 8.1M viewers) and the Grammy Awards (4M viewers) sharing its 10 p.m. time slot. The History Channel seems overjoyed that Full Metal Jousting did as well as it did, relatively speaking, employing the descriptors “RATINGS DOMINANCE!” and “stellar ratings success” in a press release. For the record, it did beat out Real Housewives Atlanta and Finding Bigfoot in the 10 o’clock spot.